Greg Fay is CPJ's executive assistant and board liaison. He was in China on a Fulbright fellowship from 2007-2008.

"High Tech, Low Life," a new documentary
about Chinese bloggers directed by Stephen Maing, debuted at the 2012 Tribeca
Film Festival in New York on April 19. It documents the lives of Zola (Zhou
Shuguang) and Tiger Temple (Zhang Shihe), as they blur the lines of citizen
journalism and activism though their reporting on evictions, pollution, and
official cover-ups in China. Zola was in town for the premiere, and he
and the director fielded questions from the audience after the film's showing.

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The creators of "Beginning
of the Great Revival," a new film about the founding of the Chinese
Communist Party, have spared no expense to make it a popular success. Done in a
popular Chinese soap opera style, the movie features more than 100 stars, along
with leading directors and producers. Then, the government enlisted information
authorities to wipe out negative news coverage, according to international
media reports.

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Kazakhstan authorities have extradited Uighur schoolteacher Arshidin
Israil to China, where officials have described him without elaboration as a "major
terror suspect," according to Reuters
and other news accounts. Israil and his supporters believe the detention comes
in reprisal for reporting he contributed to Radio Free Asia concerning the July
2009 riots in Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, according to Radio
Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Israil, a
native of Xinjiang, fled China after the unrest but was detained in Kazakhstan
in June 2010, according to news reports. He was extradited on May 30 of this
year, days after Chinese authorities censored
reporting and restricted online
discussion about ethnic unrest in Inner Mongolia--an autonomous ethnic region
like Xinjiang.

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Three years after a devastating earthquake hit Sichuan province in May
2008, CPJ spoke to documentary filmmaker Alison
Klayman. The director is working on the upcoming "Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry," about the
recently detained Chinese artist who documented the aftermath of the earthquake
and published the names of children killed in the collapse of frail school
buildings.

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The stage was full of empty chairs on Thursday at "China in Two
Acts," part of the five-day PEN World Voices Festival of International
Literature in New York, which ended on Sunday.
A two-part program featured writer Zha Jianying
speaking for the first part followed by a panel discussion in the second. The
chairs, a nod to Nobel laureate Liu
Xiaobo's recent imprisonment, also signified the absence of Liao Yiwu,
author and fellow IndePENdent Chinese PEN Center board member. Liao was barred
from leaving the country, festival chair Salman Rushdie wrote
in a New York Times op-ed.